How GigaStar Built a Stock Market for YouTube Creators, With Stablecoin Funding Powered by Cybrid

Key takeaways:

• YouTube creators run real businesses but haven't had access to the financing other entrepreneurs get. GigaStar helps creators turn their channels into regulated, tokenized securities that investors can buy shares in and receive revenue monthly.
• GigaStar chose Cybrid as a compliant stablecoin ramp for funding value in stablecoins. In GigaStar Market, where creators can sell initial offerings, Cybrid converts investors' USDC to USD and settles it into escrow. In GigaStar Trading, the secondary market, Cybrid allows investors to use their GigaStar Wallet as a funding source.
• GigaStar has raised more than $7M for creators across nearly 40 offerings and distributed more than $1.5M as USDC to investors to date, with plans to expand revenue-share offerings beyond YouTube, to attract institutional investors and deepen capital markets on its platform.

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GigaStar's co-founder spent over a decade building companies in the creator economy, and he kept running into the same gap. YouTube creators were building real businesses around their channels, but no one was financing them like businesses.

"YouTube creators are not being recognized as entrepreneurs,” said Hazem Dawani, GigaStar's CEO and co-founder, who previously built and sold two VC-backed fintech startups. “They're not provided the financial infrastructure [and] the financing, as other tech entrepreneurs.”

GigaStar's answer is to let creators turn their channels into investable assets. Creators issue Channel Revenue Tokens (CRTs) under Crowd Funding regulation, which entitle investors to a percentage of the channel's future YouTube revenue. Investors buy a share of the revenue and remain or become fans, while the creators keep full creative control.

After the success of GigaStar’s initial offering platform—called GigaStar Market—the next step in the vision was to build a secondary market, called GigaStar Trading, where investors could buy and trade existing CRTs.

GigaStar was already working with Cybrid to allow investors to fund their investments by offramping their USDC to USD in escrow for its Market offering. Through continued partnership and engagement, the company ultimately decided to expand its use case with Cybrid and leverage remittance API infrastructure to allow investors to also use their GigaStar Wallet as a funding source.

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Why GigaStar chose Cybrid

Letting investors fund and withdraw using stablecoin assets was one of GigaStar's earliest goals.

"Because we are blockchain forward, the idea of allowing people to invest using their crypto assets is very compelling, and it was one of the initial core goals," said Victor Glava, GigaStar CTO. "That's where Cybrid came in."

Further, stablecoins presented a practical reality; with smaller and more frequent transactions, traditional infrastructure didn’t always fit the bill.

"You cannot use the ACH or wire rails if you're sending lower dollar amounts  here and there as part of the monthly revenue distribution to investors," Victor added. "One of the core benefits of the blockchain is the ability to make smaller transactions."

While GigaStar had an existing relationship with Cybrid, the company still developed a requirements map to ensure that all vendors–including Cybrid–fit the bill:

• Compliance: The partner had to work within regulated crowdfunding and SEC requirements, settle funds into escrow, and run its own KYC.
• A closed loop for dividends: Investors who receive revenue in USDC should be able to reinvest it on the platform.
• Economics: The cost had to fit GigaStar's fee model and keep overall costs reasonable.
• Longevity: GigaStar needed a partner that would hold up under regulator audits and still be around years from now.

Cybrid met those requirements with its easy-to-use stablecoin orchestration API.

"Cybrid filled a need that we had, through the API… through the technology, through stability," Hazem said. "We're looking for stable partners that are going to be here for the next few years, and credible."

It also mattered to Hazem that Cybrid was a nimble organization that truly listened to their needs.

"You're flexible. You move fast. You heard our needs," he added. "And as a startup trying to build something that nobody else has built before, we do have some special needs every now and then."

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Your money, your choice of rails

GigaStar's smart contracts, which are an integral part of the overall GigaStar tech stack, are the source of truth for how money moves on the platform, and every distribution and transaction is visible on the public ledger.

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How Cybrid fits

Cybrid acts as the stablecoin ramp: it takes payment instructions from the GigaStar system  and moves the funds between stablecoins and dollars.

In GigaStar Market, an investor connects their wallet and pays in USDC. Cybrid converts the USDC to USD and settles it into the offering's escrow account, while running its own KYC alongside GigaStar's checks. Victor said the team had a good experience testing Cybrid’s API and getting it live.

When GigaStar Trading soft-launched in July 2026, Cybrid's role expanded. In the secondary market, investors can hold cash, USDC, and digital assets in a GigaStar wallet. Cybrid allows investors to also use their GigaStar Wallet USDC as a funding source for GigaStar Market.

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Creating investor choice

"Now the user has four options to choose from when they're making an investment in the primary market: credit card, bank account, their personal USDC wallet, or the GigaStar USDC wallet," Victor said.

A complex tech stack  runs under the surface, but investors see one experience: a single sign-up for either market or both, and one view of everything they hold.

"As a user, you don't care. It's your money," Victor added. "[You] just want to be able to very easily use it."

The results so far:

• $7M+ raised for creators across nearly 40 primary offerings
• $1.5M+ distributed as USDC to investors through GigaStar's smart contracts
• 30K+ investor accounts on the primary market
• $100K+ in trading volume and 1,000+ accounts opened on GigaStar Trading in its first two months

The secondary market is also bringing new investors to the primary market. "A rising tide lifts all boats," said Sarah McNabb, GigaStar's Chief Marketing Officer.

Building the standard for the creator economy

From day one, GigaStar’s vision has been to build true financial infrastructure for creators. Now, the core elements are in place.

"We have the full financial infrastructure built; the solution is there," Hazem said. "Finally have all the pieces in place, and we're looking to scale."

The first priority is deeper liquidity: hundreds more creators and tens of thousands more investors. Each primary holding becomes tradable once its 12-month holding period ends, so GigaStar Trading will grow on its own as more offerings mature.

Alongside that, GigaStar is starting to bring in institutional investors. It has already helped set up an institutional fund, where investors put in $250K on average, and built Giga Mode, a suite of features including advanced order book and market depth analytics for experienced traders.

Looking further into the future, GigaStar plans to expand what it offers. Victor said the company is considering a lot of options, including the possibility of new trading offerings, like indices, and expanding beyond YouTube to other creator platforms like TikTok or Twitch. Cybrid's stablecoin payments are already in place across both markets, so that growth won't require rebuilding how money moves.

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